Studying International Trade and Development at the School of International Studies

This article attempts to trace the 70-year-long journey of the study of International Trade and Development (ITD) at the School of International Studies (SIS) of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). It reflects on the opportunities and challenges faced by ITD and presents a perspective on its way forward. The article captures how ITD’s scholarship and contributions to teaching and research evolved organically with the changing paradigms of trade and development policy, both globally and in India. The article divides ITD’s journey into four distinct phases marked by structural discontinuities, beginning with the Department of International Economics at the Indian School of International Studies (ISIS), followed by the ITD division in SIS/JNU, then its emergence as the Centre for International Trade and Development (CITD) and finally its recent transformation as the Centre for the Study of the World Economy (CSWE). It concludes that ITD, in its new avatar as CSWE, is set to provide a critical impetus to the advancement of international studies at JNU.